The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is signed into law, making it easier for workers to carry health insurance from job to job.

At the urging of President Clinton, Congress adopts the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, to expand health coverage to the 11 million uninsured children in the United States.

States begin a widespread effort to enroll children and their parents in the new federally funded, state-based CHIP programs.

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act is signed into law, making significant changes to the Medicare program. Most importantly, the act creates a complicated series of private prescription drug discount plans, allows for competition among health plans to foster innovation and flexibility in coverage and covers some new preventive measures.

Due to low enrollment numbers, $1.3 billion in unspent federal State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, matching funds initially allocated for fiscal years 1998, 1999 and 2000 revert to the federal Treasury on Sept. 30, 2004.

Massachusetts becomes the first state to mandate that all residents will have health insurance by 2009. The state agrees to create low- or no-cost plans for the lowest wage-earning residents. And people will get a tax break to help pay for insurance.

The federal government sets a new standard allowing states to offer SCHIP-funded health insurance coverage to children living in households making up to three times the federal poverty level. By the end of the year, some 40 states and Washington, D.C., are insuring children at the 200 percent of poverty level -- up from three states in 1997.

Several states, including Georgia, face shortfalls after thousands of residents sign up for SCHIP efforts. The shortages prompt Congress to move to cover the costs and spark wider discussion of renewing the program aimed at insuring children.